Due to change of hard drive I have needed to reinstall BOINC. But during that process I decided to change its location to another partition and tried to remove the initial installation beforehand. On second install, it would not allow me to direct it to another partition and offered only the C/Programs. So I tried to edit the Registry, search and remove all references to the original.

Seemed to go OK, but now on nearing the end of the install (to any location) it will not complete and brings up an error dialogue:

"BOINC Installer Information. Error 1714. The older version of BOINC cannot be removed. Contact your technical support group."

Can anyone advise on what else needs to be removed to kill this? Or any other advice/experience in this matter.

Thanks

Peter B

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Use the Microsoft Installer Cleaner from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

Delete the corrupt BOINC installation (no name, or just one character) or all the BOINC installers you see.

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Thanks Jord

I've downloaded and tried the Cleaner. Unfortunately no reference to the previous installations show in the listing. So as far as I can see from this, I'm unable to use it to remove anything else.

I still have my old drive and installation inside the computer, for accessing old info. But cannot use that old system to start up from due to loss of desktop files. I wonder, is there any chance the original BOINC installation on that volume is being seen by the installer and causing this error message? If so I wold have to delete all that as well, but would want to somehow save and transfer any project data files first. That would be another task to find out how to accomplish.

Oh for SetiAtHome Classic. That just ran happily on all my systems. This method has proved to be a pig to set up and now even more so.

Peter B

Use the Microsoft Installer Cleaner from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

Delete the corrupt BOINC installation (no name, or just one character) or all the BOINC installers you see.

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Hi Peter,
Once you get this blockage sorted, I hope you will find Boinc better than Classic. I've run both and find there's a lot more flexibility once you get it sorted.
Your problem might be because Boinc 5.?? won't update directly from 4.??, but needs you to uninstall the earlier version first, or it may still be seeing the old version and thinks it doesn't need to install again.
Quickest fix might be to copy the whole Boinc directory to your new disc and rename the old version to hide it.

I find that it is good practise to backup all the projects before any move or update so this is what I do;

Exit Boinc if it's running and make sure Boinc and any project progams aren't running in the background through Task Manager.
Find the Projects file in the old Boinc directory and copy it somewhere safe.
You should now be able to uninstall or maybe just delete that whole directory. Hopefully this will then allow you to install your new version of Boinc on your default disc, but don't let it start until you have copied your Projects file to the new Boinc directory. If all is well, when you now start Boinc it will see your projects and begin crunching for you again where it left off.

Notice I've said "copy" everywhere so that even if something doesn't go well, you won't have lost anything. Once your sure it's all OK you can clean up all these copies.
Please don't be offended if this sounds too simplistic for you but it may be of help to someone else with a similar problem.

Hope this works for you.

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One way to get rid of an older version of BOINC that is being persistant, is to re-install an old version such as 4.19, and then use the uninstall program to remove it. Hopefully, this will remove ALL traces of 4.* versions, and allow you to install a 5,* version.
It's worked for some people on cpdn, but not everyone re-posted, so it might not work in all cases.

Find the Projects file in the old Boinc directory and copy it somewhere safe.

Sorry, didn't come back in time to edit.
Looks like there's some other account stuff it might need outwith the Projects file, so might be safer to copy the whole directory before you rename etc. Hope I'm not too late, but if you listened to the "copy" comment you should still be safe.

Les's idea sounds good, provided you have an early enough version tucked away. 4.45 is the earliest available on the download page below the recommended version.

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Les's idea sounds good, provided you have an early enough version tucked away. 4.45 is the earliest available on the download page below the recommended version.

Sorry to correct you but all version starting with 4.05 to the latest Alpha can be found here. I agree that 4.19 would be the one to try since it is after this version that the new installations could be overlayed.

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Boinc V 7.4.36
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB NVidia 470

Many thanks for all the input guys.

I've backed up the old BOINC folder, downloaded 4.19 as suggested via the link and installed it successfully. First tried to reinstall 5.2.13 directly over it, but that cannot be done without uninstallation beforehand.

So did that. But neither 5.2.13 or 4.45 will reinstall again. They both stall and bring up the Error 1714 message described in my first post.


So at the mo, I've put 4.19 back in to run, which looks as though it will if I start it up.

However since the directory structure is different from 5.2.13, is there a clean and rational way I can put my project data back into it?

That way I could carry on running until i find some way of getting around the updating problem.

BTW: Ray - no offence taken!

Thanks Jord

I've downloaded and tried the Cleaner. Unfortunately no reference to the previous installations show in the listing. So as far as I can see from this, I'm unable to use it to remove anything else.

I still have my old drive and installation inside the computer, for accessing old info. But cannot use that old system to start up from due to loss of desktop files. I wonder, is there any chance the original BOINC installation on that volume is being seen by the installer and causing this error message?

So did that. But neither 5.2.13 or 4.45 will reinstall again. They both stall and bring up the Error 1714 message described in my first post.

Is there any BOINC installer in the list?

Look especiall at this post for the clues.

Else uninstall BOINC and use a registry cleaner like this one to cleanse your registry. (It's linked from my own website)

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